A STUDY OF EAST INDIAN SOCIETY’S STRUGGLE TO SURVIVE IN TRINIDAD AS DEPICTED IN NAIPUL’S A

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A STUDY OF EAST INDIAN SOCIETY’S STRUGGLE TO

SURVIVE IN TRINIDAD AS DEPICTED IN NAIPUL’S

A

HOUSE FOR MR. BISWAS

AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS

Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree ofSarjana Sastra

in English Letters

By

Alloysius Ditto Christianto Student Number : 004214108

ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS

FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY

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A STUDY OF EAST INDIAN SOCIETY’S STRUGGLE TO

SURVIVE IN TRINIDAD AS DEPICTED IN NAIPUL’S

A

HOUSE FOR MR. BISWAS

AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS

Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree ofSarjana Sastra

in English Letters

By

Alloysius Ditto Christianto Student Number : 004214108

ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS

FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY

YOGYAKARTA 2008

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I want to live a long life,

Not just a simple life

But to make my life alive!

This undergraduate thesis is dedicated to: My beloved parents My lovely sister

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Life is not the amount breath you take,

But the moment that takes your breath away

From the movie ‘Hictch’

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LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN

PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS

Yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini,s aya mahasiswa Universitas Sanata Dharma : Nama : ALLOYSIUS DITTO CHRISTIANTO

Nomor Mahasiswa : 004214108

Demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan, saya memberikan kepada perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul :

A STUDY OF EAST INDIAN SOCIETY’S STRUGGLE TO SURVIVE IN TRINIDAD AS DEPICTED IN NAIPUL’S A HOUSE FOR MR. BISWAS beserta perangkat yang diperlukan (bila ada). Demikian saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma hak untuk menyimpan, mengalihkan dalam bentuk media lain, mengelolanya dalam bentuk pangkalan data, mendistribusikan secara terbatas, dan mempublikasikannya di Internet atau media lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu meminta ijin dari saya maupun memberikan royalti kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama saya sebagai penulis.

Demikian pernyataan ini saya buat dengan sebenarnya.

Dibuat di Yogyakarta

Pada tanggal : 1 September 2008

Yang menyatakan

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First of all, I would like to dedicate my very special gratitude and thankfulness to God for His amazing gift of the life.

I would like to thank to Luh Putu Rosiandani, S.S. M.Hum, for sharing me her precious time, patience, advice, guidance that helped me to finish this thesis. I would also say thanks to Drs. Hirmawan Wijanarka M.Hum, for the chance for me to finish this thesis until the deadline, and also to Dra. Th. Eny Anggraeni M.A. for the quick and sharp advice.

I dedicate my thesis to my whole family, my beloved father, Drs. Antonius Juswanto Endrojono and my lovely mother, Theresia Sri Rahayu for your unconditional love. Thank you for all of your support, patience and reminder in my whole life. My sweet little sister, Angela Christi for your cheers and joy. I am very lucky to have you all as my family.

My very best friends, Jodi and Teguh, thank you for your time that we spent together. Let’s have a party at JAKSA 2008 as alumni!

My friends inFakultas Sastra Sadhar, Sunu, Galang, Muji, Sugeng, Budi, Badu, Greg, Haryo, thank you for your share of time, knowledge, and money! My campus life would not be complete without you guys!

My friend in English Letters 2000, thank you for the friendship we had. Thank you for my cousins, Reza, Budi, Donny, Monik, Andik, Ndoeng, Dewa, for great times we spent as we grew up together.

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And the last but the least I would like to say thank you to Dek Danik, for the years we spent together with discussion, quarrel, and love. Thank you for being at my side.

ALLOYSIUS DITTO CHRISTIANTO

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This study concerns the modern novel of V.S. Naipaul’s A House For Mr. Biswas. The novel tells about Mr. Biswas as the representation of the East Indian Society in Trinidad who struggles to survive. The aim of the study is first to find out the kinds of oppression the Indian migrant society suffered from colonialism depicted in the novel, and the second is to find out the Indian migrant society’s attitude struggle to survive on once-colonized country.

In analyzing the problem, the writer conducted a library research. The data were obtained from the novel itself, some review on the novel and other sources related to the novel. The approach used in analyzing the problem is socio-cultural-historical approach will be applied in analyzing this thesis. The theories that used in this thesis are theory of Character and Characterization, theory of Colonialism, and theory of Postcolonialism.

The result of the study shows that 1) There three parts of the novel that can be said as the colonizer. They are the sugar-estate, the Tulsi family, and Seth. The main character of the novel, Mr. Biswas is the colonized. Mr. Biswas suffered unfair treatments from the colonizers. The suffering can be categorized into the suffering in earning money for living, the suffering to make a place called home, the suffering with the relations of the Tulsi family. 2) Mr. Biswas had struggled to survive under the unfair treatments from the colonizers. The struggle of Mr.Biswas can be categorized into the struggle to get a better living, the struggle to get better education, and the struggle to have a proper house of his own.

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ABSTRAK

ALLOYSIUS DITTO CHRISTIANTO. A Study of East Indian Society’s Struggle to Survive in Trinidad as Depicted in Naipaul’s A House For Mr. Biswas. Yogyakarta: Jurusan Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Sanata Dharma, 2008.

Skripsi ini membahas novel berjudul A House For Mr. Biswas karya V. S. Naipaul. Novel tersebut bercerita tentang Mr. Biswas sebagai gambaran masyarakat India di Trinidad yang menderita akibat kolonialisme. Tujuan penulisan skripsi ini adalah untuk mengetahui bagaimana derita masyarakat India pendatang di Trinidad dan untuk mengetahui bagaimana perjuangan mereka untuk bertahan hidup di daerah koloni.

Dalam penulisan masalah, penulis menggunakan studi pustaka. Data-data diperoleh dari novel, tinjauan tentang novel tersebut dan dari sumber lain yang berkaitan dengan novel tersebut. Pendekatan yang digunakan adalah pendekatan social-budaya-sejarah. Di samping itu, teori karakter dan karakterisasi, teori kolonialisme dan teori pascakolonial juga digunakan dalam penulisan skripsi ini.

Hasil penelitian menunjukan bahwa 1) ada tiga unsur dari novel tersebut yang bisa disebut sebagai penindas. Mereka yaitu perkebunan tebu, keluarga Tulsi, dan Seth. Tokoh utama dalam novel ini yaitu Mr. Biswas merupakan golongan tertindas. Penindasan yang diderita dapat digolongkan menjadi penderitaan untuk menyambung hidup, penderitaan untuk mendapatkan tempat tinggal, dan penderitaan karena penindasan oleh keluarga Tulsi. 2) Mr. Biswas berjuang di tengah penderitaan akibat perlakuan tidak adil kaum penindas. Perjuangan Mr. Biswas tersebut dapat dikelompokan menjadi perjuangan untuk mendapatkan hisup yang lebih layak, perjuangan untuk mendapatkan pendidikan yang lebih baik, dan perjuangan untuk mendapatkan tempat tinggal yang sesuai.

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

Literary is not simply a work of art that only contains aesthetic elements. It can be form of historical documents that record social realities which are artistically portrayed by writers or authors in their works. In literature such as novels, the author sometimes reveals his/her opinions and views about something related to the reality in his/her surroundings. Literature springs from the desire of writer to communicate his/her own ideas and feelings about that he/she observes or experience.

Reading a novel may be one of the cheap recreations, but actually we can gain more than just pleasure. Novel as a literature can be read as a work art and can also be learned to gain knowledge. This is a function of literature presented by

The Theory of Literature called dulce et utile by Horace (Wellek and Warren, 1970: 30). With this function, we can read a literature to get knowledge of human experiences, such as a society in once-colonized area. We can read this kind of human experiences in postcolonial literature.

Bohmer states postcolonial literature is generally defined as that which critically or subversively scrutinizes the colonial relationship, rather than simply being the writing which ‘came after’ empire. Postcolonial literature is writing that sets out in one way or another to resist colonialist perspectives. Postcolonial

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literature is deeply marked by experiences of cultural exclusion and division under empire (2005: 3).

For centuries Europe had delivered the practice of colonialism. More than two third of the land surface of the globe had been under formal European government. Ania Loomba inColonialism/Postcolonialismdefined colonialism as ‘the conquest and control of other people’ (2000: 2). By these definitions, there was a process of forming a community that might be unfair in through wide range of practices. This situation creates a society that can be distinguished into a contradictive community, in which there are two group of people in opposition one another. One is the colonizer, a group that has domination on another group called colonized people.

That situation also appeared in Trinidad in Caribbean as an English Colony. Many people from different culture, ethnic, and nationality were relocated such as African and Indian. Lived in a colony area, the immigrants suffered exploitation under colonial system. The bad experience of Indian migrant in Trinidad became the background ofA House For Mr. Biswas, as the novel will be analyzed in this thesis.

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House For Mr. Biswas. Unlike many other novels that based on postcolonial society, A House For Mr. Biswas is interesting because the irony and pessimism of postcolonial society were strongly developed in the novel.

This novel is about the life of Indian migrants on Trinidad, an island on Caribbean which was an English Colony. The story of the novel took time before the independence and after the independence. What interesting in the novel is on the way the author shows the experience of Indian migrants. The author describes how they struggle to survive with variety of job, try to get education at the island even going abroad, try to recall their culture. The author shows that the immigrant society is dependent to western domination. It is likely that the author is pessimistic with the future of Indian migrant society in formerly-colonized country.

In this thesis, the writer wants to elaborate the issues about the life of Indian migrants society on Trinidad during and after colonialism as the topic of the discussion. The writer wants to bring up the problem about the life experience on colonized area. Since the life experience of the society on the novel is concerning postcolonial issues, it is also interesting to analyse the society’s attitude on their way to struggle to survive in colonized area.

B. Problem Formulation

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1. What kinds of oppression does the East Indian Society suffer from colonialism depicted in the novel?

2. How does the East Indian Society struggle to survive under colonialism as a form of resistance?

C. Objectives of the Study

To find out the notion of this research in which it has been provided two directions in the problem formulation. The aim of the study is to find out the answer of the problems that are given in the problem formulation. The answer of the problems has to have goals to make a valuable contribution to the study of literature. Therefore, the writer needs to state the objectives in this term precisely and clearly. The first objective is to find out the kinds of oppression the Indian migrant society suffered from colonialism depicted in the novel. The second objective is to find out the Indian migrant society’s attitude struggle to survive on once-colonized country.

D. Definition of Terms

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1. East Indian Society

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CHAPTER II

THEORETICAL REVIEW

In this chapter, the writer provides some criticisms toward the novel and the author which conveyed in the review on related studies. This part is intended to ensure the originality of this thesis. The writer also presents some applied theories in analyzing this thesis, namely; theory on characterization, theory on setting, theory on colonialism, and postcolonial theory. Finally, the theoretical framework will subscribe the connectivity of those theories and how they work together.

A. Review of Related Studies

In this part, the writer presents some criticism on V. S. Naipaul. Since this thesis is a postcolonial study, the criticisms which taken from books and internet are also focused in postcolonial study.

The British writer, born in Trinidad,V(idiadhar) S(urajprasad) Naipaul was born in 1932 in Chaguanas, close to the Port of Spain on Trinidad, in a family descended from immigrants from the north of India. His grandfather worked in a sugar cane plantation and his father was a journalist and writer. At the age of 18 Naipaul travelled to England where, after studying at University College at Oxford, he was awarded the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1953. From then on he continued to live in England but he has also spent a great deal of time

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travelling in Asia, Africa and America. Apart from a few years in the middle of the 1950s, when he was employed by the BBC as a free-lance journalist, he has devoted himself entirely to his writing. V.S. Naipaul has been awarded a number of literary prizes, among them the Somerset Maugham Award in 1959, the W. H. Smith Award in 1968, the Booker Prize in 1971 and the T.S. Eliot Award for Creative Writing in 1986. He is an honorary doctor of St. Andrew's College and Columbia University and of the Universities of Cambridge, London and Oxford. In 1990 he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth. Naipaul's works consist mainly of novels and short stories, but also include some that are documentary. He is too a very high degree cosmopolitan writer, a fact that he himself considers to stem from his lack of roots: he is unhappy about the cultural and spiritual poverty of Trinidad, he feels alienated from India, and in England he is incapable of relating to and identifying with the traditional values of what was once a colonial power.

(http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2001/bio-bibl.html)

Homi Bhabha as noted by Bill Ashcroft and friends in theEmpires Writes Back reminds ‘the collusion between narrative mode, history, and realist mimetic readings of text.’ (1991: 34) By taking A House for Mr. Biswas from V. S. Naipul, it ia explained that:

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Other critic, Elleke Boehmer compares V. S. Naipaul with another writer of colonized experience, the Indian R. K. Narayan. Boehmer said that compare to Narayan, V. S. Naipaul’s works respond more ‘pessimistic and ironic’. Boehmer adds ‘as a writer enamoured of British culture, and scornful of formerly colonized societies, Naipaul is central to any discussion of assimilation and the duality of postcolonial identity’ (2005:167).

There are also three undergraduate theses in Sanata Dhrama University which are analyzed one of Naipaul’s work, A Bend in the River. Irrene Amelia’s thesis entitled Naipaul’s Criticism toward African Postcolonial Society in A Bend in the River analyzed this novel as the author critics of African future which is pessimistic. The other thesis entitled The Significance of Plot in Illuminating the Conflict of Cultural Identity Crisis in Naipaul’s A Bend in the River written by Fitri Handayani concluded from the novel that there were crisis of cultural identity in post-colonial Congo. While Dedi Irwansyah in his The Influence of Post-colonial Society on the Development of Salim as seen in the Plot of V. S.

Naipaul’s A Bend in the River also found a pessimistic tone from the character Salim in post-colonial country.

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Indian Society in Trinidad during colonialism and their struggle to survive under oppression through some main characters in the novel.

B. Review of Related Theories

In doing this study, there are several theories needed to support the accuracy of the analysis. A work of literature is developed by some significant intrinsic elements. In the analysis, the writer tries to examine the characters who are involved as the colonizer or the colonized people. Therefore, the theory of character will be helpful in analyzing this problem.

1. Theory of Character and Characterization

It is stated in Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama, that a character may be defined as a person that appears in the story. Mostly, the character is recognized by their human personalities. If the story seems true and life, it is found that its character act in a reasonably consistent manner and that the author has provided them with motivation: sufficient reason to act like they do (Kennedy and Gioia, 1999: 6061).

M. H. Abrams in his A Glossary of Literary Terms defines the term character as the definition below:

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Abrams also says that characters’ motivation can be seen in their temperament, desires, and moral nature for their speech and actions (1993:23). In the book

Thinking and Writing about Literature, Edgar V. Robert shares the same perspective about the definition of characters:

Character in literature is an extended verbal representation of a human being, specifically the inner self that determines thought, speech, and behavior through dialogue, action, and commentary, literature captures some of the interactions interesting by portraying characters who are caring about, rooting for, and even loving, although there are also characters at whom you may laugh or whom you may dislike or even hate (1989: 54).

In conclusion, we would be able to analysis the position and motivation of the characters in the novel through their dialogues and actions.

According to Baldick in his book The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, character is different from characterization. Characterization is the way which a character is presented. Therefore, character is the result, while characterization is the process (1991:83). Holman and Harmon defined characterization as the creation of imaginary persons. The characters are created imaginatively, but they have to be seen real, therefore they exist for the reader or audiences as lifelike (1986: 45).

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There are also four fundamental methods of characterization: (1) the explicit presentation by the author of the character though direct exposition, either in an introductory block or more often piecemeal throughout the work, illustrated by action; (2) the presentation of the character in action, with little or no explicit comment by the author, in the expectation that reader can deduce the attributes of the actor from the actions, and (3) the representation from within a character, without comment by the author of the impact of actions and emotions on the character’s inner self. Regardless of the method by which a character is presented, the author may concentrate on a dominant trait to the exclusion of the other aspects of personality, or the author may attempt to present a fully rounded creation. (4) The last is what the author says about them as observer. Usually, what the author says about the characters can be accepted as accurate. The author assumes the role of a reader or critic and any opinions may be either right or wrong (Roberts and Jacobs, 1987: 147-148).

2. Theory of Setting

Setting is a part of the complex perspective on people and action that is offered to a reader; it helps to set the tone and the mood and it helps to realize both the character and the plot of a literary work (Beaty and Hunter, 1989: 11). Setting is always important to the way a piece of literature affects us and thus, it is an important element to consider in reading.

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setting may also be the indoor location like the physical arrangements of the furniture or the position of windows and door of a room; (2) the character’s occupation and daily attitudes or activities of living; (3) the time or ere in which the actions happens, for examples: the year, the season or it might be an epoch in history, etc; (4) the general environment through which the characters act or move; which may include the characters’ religious background, .mental or emotional condition, as well as the social and moral conditions (1986: 465).

Setting is used to enrich the meaning of a story. In limited sense, setting refers to the general locale and historical time ‘(Abrams, 1993:175); it is when and where the actions occurs. In a large sense, setting refers to the ‘social circumstances in which its action occurs.’ It takes the social condition or total environment in which the character live.

According to Nurgiantoro (1995: 225), there are three basic elements of setting in a novel, which has some relationship with each other, they are:

1. Place

The setting of place refers to the place when actions of the novel occurs. It can refer to the actual place or the name of the place created by author. To make the setting convincingly to the readers, the accuracy in description and coherence with the other element of the novel must be obtained.

2. Time

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According to Ganette as quoted by Nurgiantoro the setting of time has two meanings, it refers to the time when the author wrote the story or the time of the story itself.

3. Society

The society of the novel refers to the people in the novel, including the social behavior, and it can be habits, traditions, beliefs, and moral value of the people in the novel. It also refers to the social status of the characters in the novel for examples: lower class, middle class, and upper class (1995 :227-234).

The relationship between the place, time, and society is that the description of the setting of place must be attached to the description of the society of the novel at a certain time. Those three elements of setting must form a solid unit, in which the events of the story happen,

3. Theory of Colonialism

Ania Loomba defines colonialism as ‘the conquest and control other’s people land.’ Using their domination, the colonizer tried to forming a community in their colony by unforming or re-forming the original community (2000:2). Loomba adds that colonialism help the birth of European capitalism as quoted follows,

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The nature of colonialism on Loomba’s argumentation is colonialism as an economic and political structure of cross-cultural domination. Stephen Slemon in

The Scramble for Post-Colonialism as a part of The Postcolonial Studies Reader

said that colonialism is ‘a form of political, economic, and discursive oppression’ (2002:52). Selmon also defines that kinds of colonialism are much influenced by the cultural location, native condition, and territories.

Furthermore, Bohmer emphasizes that ‘colonialism involves the consolidation of the imperial power, and is manifested in the settlement of territory, the exploitation or development of resources, and the attempt to govern the indigenous inhabitants of occupied lands, often by force’(2005:2). In conclusion, colonialism can refer to any practice of domination or oppression, from cultural to economic control over other societies or territories. This theory will be useful to find the domination of colonizer inA House for Mr. Biswas.

4. Theory of Postcolonialism

Since this analysis is a postcolonial study, the theory of postcolonialism is much needed so that the writer will always know the position and scope of study. Loomba suggests us to think postcolonialism ‘as the contestation of colonial domination and the legacies of colonialism rather than just as coming after colonialism and signifying its demise’ (2000:12). Leela Gandhi also gives comments about postcoloniality and postcolonialism as follow,

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of postcolonialism inheres, in part, in its ability to elaborate the forgotten memories of this condition (1998:7-8).

In other words, postcolonial theory is a theory of remembering and recalling the colonial past. Peter Barry in his Beginning Theory, An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory, concluded from Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth

‘if the first step towards a postcolonial perspective is to the reclaim one’s past, then the second step is to begin to erode the colonialist ideology by which that past had been devalued’ (2002:193).

Further, Barry gives four area of concern of postcolonial approach which is first an awareness of the representations of the non-European as exotic or immoral ‘Other’, the term that used to mention the non-European, second is the language itself, and third is hybridity identity, and the last is cross-cultural interactions (2002:194-196). He also provides three stages to see a postcolonial literature. The first phase is Adopt; there is an acceptance of European model without rejection. The second phase called Adapt; in this phase diversity, hybridity, and difference become central. At the last phase, Adept, there is a declaration of cultural independence without Europeans norms (2002:196).

C. Review on East Indian Society in Trinidad

Since the novel focuses on East Indian society in Trinidad, the writer highlights the social phenomenon of this society in Trinidad in the middle of 20th century, to find out the experience of the society during colonialism. This background was taken from one article of Encyclopedia of World Cultured

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As mentioned earlier East Indian people in Trinidad are descendents of the indentured laborer who were brought from India. Those immigrants spoke a number of Indic languages, and a few spoke Tamil, a Dravidian language. English then was commonly used by the middle of twentieth century. Sanskrit also continues to be used in Hindu religious services (1995:104).

The majority of East Indian lived in rural communities in the sugar-growing regions of the central and southern Trinidad. Their lives in Trinidad were much affected by some major events. During the World War II, many rural East Indian found, for the first time, sources if income other than work in the cane fields. This was because the USA built military base in Trinidad. This meant dollar came to Trinidad, along with new perspectives on social relationship, new dimensions of social, familial, political, and religious stress. In addition, the population of East Indian who now were Trinidad-born, some attracted to West Indian, even European, values and interest, but others sought to hold on to elements of their Indian tradition (1995:104).

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Nevertheless, the majority of East Indian maintained some degree of caste identification over generations, and this sense of affiliation affected marriage and association patterns. For many of the higher-ranked castes, the patrilineal joint family (i.e., married brothers and their families sharing the same household) was the ideal social unit; others preferred the nuclear-family household. But then by the twentieth century the last pattern became the predominant pattern among Indo-Trinidadians. Although some families encouraged education for sons and even daughters, for most East Indian children before the oil boom, adolescence meant early marriage for girls and an introduction to cane cutting or other employments for boys (1995:106).

D. Theoretical Framework

The theory that is needed by the writer is the theory of colonialism along with the theory of characters and characterization. These theories were combined to analyze the first problem formulation. The writer will be able to find the colonizer and the colonized and also the experience of colonized under the colonizer. The theory of colonialism will also help the writer to know colonial impact on the society in the novel.

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CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY

A. Object of the Study

A House for Mr. Biswas was written between 1957 and 1960 and a year later was published for the first time. The writer uses the edition published by Vintage Books, which was printed in 2001.

A House for Mr. Biswashas totally 564 pages and divided into 4 parts. The first part in Prologue, the second part is Part One with 6 chapters which are Pastoral, Before the Tulsis, The Tulsis, The Chase, Green Vale, and A Departure, the third part is Part Two which is consist of ‘Amazing Scene’, The New Régime, The Shorthills Adventure, Among the Readers and Learners, The Void, The Revolution, and The House, and the last part is Epilogue.

In brief,A House for Mr. Biswasis about Mohun Biswas, an East Indian in Trinidad who done almost everything for having a house. He was born in a village; lived with wealthy relatives; worked as a sign painter, married into a conservative; well-to-do Hindu family; held series of jobs; and wandered from home to home. The story takes place over a period of almost fifty years-the lifetime of Mohun Biswas- during the first half of twentieth century. The journey of Mohun Biswas’s life introduced us the attitude and action of East Indian society in Trinidad during a transition period before independence.

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B. Approach of the Study

Literature in general does contain much of facts dealing with customs, beliefs or events of the past that the readers do not know. It can be said that for an understanding of the meaning of literature can come only from a study of literature itself. A literary approach is needed in order to analyze a literary work so that a good analysis can be produced. Rohrberger said in the book Reading and Writing about Literature, that approach gives a significant influence and best guide to the appreciation of a particular work of literature. An approach has its proper insight to give, and part of the task of the critic and the reader of literature is to find the approach or approaches that will best lead to a just appreciation of a particular work (1971: 15).

Socio-cultural-historical approach will be applied in analyzing this thesis along with postcolonial approach. The writer will apply the socio-cultural-historical approach since this thesis sees a literary work from its relation with social, culture, history of a certain time and place. Rohrberger and Woods state:

Critics whose major interest is the socio-cultural-historical approach insists that the only way to locate the real work in reference to the civilization that produced it. They define the civilization as the attitudes and actions of a specific group of people and point out that Literature takes these attitudes and actions as its subject matter (1972: 9-10).

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C. Method of the Study

The writer used library research in analyzing the work which the research done based on book research. The writer took V. S. Naipaul’s A House for Mr. Biswasas the primary source of this study. Some important books were also taken as the secondary sources. The Beginning Theory from Peter Barry, The Empires Writes Back from Bill Ashcroft and friends andThe Postcolonial Studies Reader

edited by Bill Ashcroft and friends became the important secondary sources of the approach applying in this research.

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CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS

This chapter will answer the questions mentioned in the chapter I. In order to make a good arrangement; this analysis is divided into two parts. The focus of the first part is to identify the kinds of oppression that the East Indian Society suffered through the character of Mr. Biswas. The result of the analysis will be the answer of the first problem. Then, the second part is focused on the way of the East Indian Society struggle to survive under the condition in Trinidad.

A. The Oppression toward East Indian Society

In discussion about oppression means trying to find out group of people that are opposite each other. Oppression is not only talking about the oppressed people but also discussed about the oppressor. In the first problem formulation, the writer would like to analyze the social condition and oppression of colonizers toward the colonized which are reflected through the character seen in the novel. From the characters, including colonizers and colonized, it will be acknowledge the sufferings caused by colonialism.

1. The Colonizer

The novel is set in Trinidad, Caribbean. Throughout the novel, the story talked about the Indian community which was the descendent of Indian migrant. The writer in this part tried to recognize the colonizers. From the story it could be drawn that the sugar-estate could represent the colonizer. From the character the

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writer put the Tulsi family’s attitudes, thought, and treatments to the others as the attitudes that represent colonizers.

a. The Sugar-Estate Owner

In the novel, the sugar-estate or sugar plantation was the representation of authority and power. The owner of the sugar-estate had the power to bring peoples from other part of the earth to work on their land. The first generation of Indian society in Trinidad came to Trinidad mostly as the labors of the sugar-estate. Mr. Biswas’s grandfather was one example.

Bipti’s father, futile with asthma, propped himself up on his string bed…Fate had brought him from India to the sugar-estate, aged him quickly and left him to die in a crumbling mud hut in the swampland (p.15).

Not only had the first generation worked at the sugar-estate. Usually it came also to the second generation. Because of lack of education and skill, work at the sugar-estate became a choice, though they earned very small mount of money. Mr. Biswas’s father was the example of this situation.

Every Saturday he lined up with other labourers outside the estate office to collect his pay. The overseer sat at a little table, on which his khaki cork rested, wasteful of space, but a symbol of wealth (p.20).

The next generation still worked at the sugar-estate like Mr. Biswas’s brothers, Pratap and Prasad. They had even recruited since a very young age, the age when children usually go to school for education.

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b. The Tulsi Family

On the other hand, not all of Indian society came to Trinidad as sugar-estate laborers. The Tulsis family for example, their predecessor, Pundit Tulsi, not came to Trinidad as a labour, a criminal, or trying to escape from his family. They even still have connection to their family in India. This family, especially the heads of the family was representation of power and authority.

The Tulsis had some reputation among Hindus as a pious, conservative, landowning family…His family still flourished in India-letters arrived regularly-and it was known that he had been of higher standing than most of Indians who had cometo Trinidad, nearly all of whom, like Raghu, like Ajodha, had lost touch with their families and wouldn’t have known in what province to find them (p.77).

With their wealth and reputation, the Tulsis could attract others, especially the man, to have connection with them as a family member by marrying one of Tulsi’s daughters. But it took several consequences, and it also happened to Mr. Biswas, the main character of the novel.

…The husband, under Seth’s supervision, worked on the Tulsis land, looked after the Tulsis animals, and servedin the store. In return they weregiven food, shelter, and a little money; their children were looked after; and they were treatedwith respect by people outside because they were connected with the Tulsi family. Their names were forgotten; they became Tulsis (p.92).

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The Tulsi family also had some properties that been rented like the house in Port of Spain.

c. Seth

Seth is Mrs. Tulsi’s brother-in-law. As the oldest man in the family, he has the power to control the family activity especially in economic part. He has a good physical appearance. His power in the Tulsi gave him authority to make income for the family, even with some pressure for the other people, like what Mr. Biswas had experience at the first time met Seth as the sign-writer for The Tulsi Store.

Mr. Biswas went to Hanuman House to paint signs for the Tulsi Store, after a protracted interview with a large, moustached, overpowering man called Seth, Mrs. Tulsi’s brother-in-law. Seth beaten down Mr. Biswas’s price and said that Mr. Biswas was getting the job only because he was an Indian; he had beaten it down a little further and said that Mr. Biswas could count himself lucky to be a Hindu; he had beaten it down yet further and said that signs were not really needed but were being commissioned from Mr. Biswas only because he was a Brahmin (p.78).

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‘You got any debts?’

‘Well, a lot of people owing me but they won’t pay’

‘Not after what happen with Mungroo. I suppose you was the only man in Trinidad who didn’t know about Seebaran and Mahmoud.’

Shama was crying openly.

Abruptly Seth lost interest in Mr. Biswas. He said, ‘Tcha!’ and looked at his bluchers.

‘You mustn’t mind.’ Mrs. Tulsi said. ‘I know you haven’t got a soft heart. But you mustn’t mind.’

Seth sighed. ‘So what we going to do with the shop?’ Mr. Biswas shrugged.

‘Insure-and-burn?’ Seth said, making it one word:insuranburn. Mr. Biswas felt that talk like this belonged to realms of high finance. Seth crossed his big arms high over his chest. ‘Is only thing for you to do now.’

‘Insuranburn,’ Mr. Biswas said. ‘How much I going to make out of that?’ ‘More than you would make if you don’t insuranburn. The shop is Mai own. The goods is yours. For the goods you ought to get about seventy-five, a hundred dollars’ (p.193-194).

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From the verandah Mr. Biswas, unseen, said, ‘This is not the end of this. The old lady will have something to say about this, I guarantee you. And Shekhar.’

Seth laughed, ‘The old hen and the big god, eh?’ he looked up at the verandah and said in Hindi, ‘Too many people have the idea that everything belongs to the Tulsis. How do you think this house was bought?’ (p.371)

2. The Colonized

From A House for Mr. Biswas, the main character, as mentioned in the novel’s title, Mohun Biswas is the main character that was being oppressed since born. Mohun Biswas is an Indian descendent of the Indian migrant in Trinidad. He was a son of a sugar estate labor named Raghu and a mother named Bipti. He was the third generation of the East Indian Society in Trinidad. He has two brothers, Pratap and Prasad, and a sister named Dehuti. His grandfather was the first generation which brought from India to work in sugar estate. He came from a poor family.

Bipti’s father, futile with asthma, propped himself up on his string bed…Fate had brought him from India to the sugar-estate, aged him quickly and left him to die in a crumbling mud hut in the swampland (p.15).

Mr. Biswas was physically not a strong man. Even he was a small, thin and weak person since he was born. His weakness was the result of bad nutrition when he was baby. It was also because of his poor family that could not afford him good food with a good nutrition.

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Malnutrition gave him the shallowest of chests, the thinnest of limbs; it stunned his growth and gave him a soft rising belly (p.21).

Soon after his birth Mr. Biswas was trusted having a bad omen or a bad luck due to the Indian belief. It was a belief that a child born in the midnight was born in the wrong time. He was claimed born in the wrong time and had six fingers when he was born. All of his family and the people who help the child-birth were afraid of this belief. The grandmother expressed in this way:

The old man groaned and Bissoondaye said, ‘I knew it. There is no luck for me.’ (p.15)

But the midwife said, ‘Whatever you do, this boy will eat up his own mother and father.’ (p.16)

Not only that, there were irrelevant fortune looking up to his physical body. The pundit says:

‘…The boy will be a lecher and a spendthrift. Possibly a liar as well.’(p.16)

And about his fingers, it considered as a bad sign by the pundit. Also the pundit came to an opinion that Mr.Biswas had an unlucky sneeze.

‘That’s a shocking sign, of course. The only thing I can advise is to keep him away from trees and water. Particularly water.’ (p.16)

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Between them and the buffalo boys there were constant disputes, and there was no doubt who were superior. The buffalo boys,…, exercised power. Whereas the children of the grass-gang,…were easy objects of ridicule (p.22-23).

So far the family belief was not led him to happiness but he had to face the situation that uncomfortable for him. Event his first job had to be determined by the bad sign of the pundit’s fortune. This fortune also influenced the village people who have believed that his bad luck cost his father’s life in an incident in the pond. Mr. Biswas, by accident, let the calf of his neighbor drowned and his was sneeze when his father dives for it.

‘That boy!’ Dhari said. ‘He has murdered my calf and now he has eaten up his own father (p.30).

Because of his father’s death, the journey of Mr. Biswas life had begun. For the next thirty-five years he was to be a wanderer with no place he could call his own. His family also separated after his father’s death. From now on he should deal with loneliness.

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luck fortune’ when he was born made him came to unfair situation. After some incident on the pundit house, Jairam the pundit asked him to leave his house.

‘You will never make a pundit,’ Jairam said ‘I was talking the other day to Sitaram, who read your horoscope. You killed your father. I am not going to let you destroy me. Sitaram particularly warned me to keep you away from trees. Go on, pack your bundle’ (p.54).

The oppression that Mr. Biswas suffered could be analysed from the series of job he done. Another episode that Mr. Biswas suffered a bad threat when he was young was the job after he came back from the pundit’s house. Tara again sent him for a job at the rumshop, which is Ajodha’s, Tara’s husband, first business. The rumshop was run by Ajodha’s brother Bhandat. Bhandat dislike Mr. Biswas and treated him bad.

Bhandat made it clear that he regarded Mr. Biswas as Tara’s spy and distrusted him (p.58).

Bhandat even beat Mr. Biswas after accused him stole his money.

…He raised his arm and brought the belt down on Mr. Biswas’s head…(p.62).

A sign-witer was the first job that Mr. Biswas had his own effort to get it after look after the calf at the village that brought tragedy to his family. This job also made him got his wife and also another job as a reporter at the Sentinel, a local newspaper, in Port of Spain. This job not gave him much problem except the income.

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…He had no money and no job, for sign-writing, while good enough fro a boy living with his mother, was hardly a secure profession for a married man…(p.91).

The other job that Mr. Biswas did was being a reporter at theSentinel. Mr. Biswas got this job by his own effort. It was not came from others help or offers like what he had done previously. But when the editor changed, Mr. Biswas felt threatened with the rules made by the new editor, called Rules for Reporters. This rule was difficult for Mr. Biswas to accept because it also ruled about the dressed that suited for funeral covering.

…Rules for Reporters! Let me see. Anything about funerals? By God! They damn have it in! “TheSentinelreporter should be soberly dressed on these occasions, that is, in a dark suit.” Dark suit! The man must think I haven’t got a wife and four children. He must think he paying me a fortune every fortnight (p.356).

Mr. Biswas was also pressured at his worked since the new editor came to the

Sentinel. He should cover the news from three different places that he covered only by his bicycle. He had to cover news from court shorts, funerals and cricket matches. Even when he was put into the Sunday Magazine, to do a weekly feature, he felt that it was not an easy task for him to do. This quotation below expressed what Mr. Biswas’s should do at the Sunday Magazine.

…It was his duty to praise; to look always beyond the facts to the official figures; for it was part of the Sentinel’s new policy of sobriety that this was the best of all worlds and Trinidad’s official institutions its most magnificent aspects (p.360).

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their rules and finally depended to them. This was happening to Mr. Biswas and he could not release the bond for a long time. The first thing he had become dependent to the Tulsis was about earned for living. After his marriage, after some times Mr. Biswas became a shopkeeper at the Tulis’s shop in a settlement called The Chase. As a shopkeeper Mr.Biswas knew a little. At first he thought to be an easy task. But finally he got everything messed up.

In the meantime he became a shopkeeper. Selling had seemed to him such an easy way of making a living he had often wondered why people bothered to do anything else...After every sale in those early days he felt he had pulled off a deep confidence trick, and had difficulty in hiding his exultation (p.140-141).

Later on, after his business at the food shop at The Chase failed, Mr. Biswas was taken the position as a driver, or sub-overseer at the sugar-estate in Green Vale which also own by the Tulsis. This job was one of the jobs he did not like since he knew nothing about sugar estate. He was also afraid of the laborers.

On Saturday s, then, he enjoyed power. But on the other days it was different. True, he went out early every morning with his long bamboo rod and measured out the labourers’ tasks. But the labourers knew he was unused to the job and was there simply as a watchman and Seth’s representative (p.199).

In the Green Vale also, Mr. Biswas suffered more because of his fears. He suffered not only from the laborers but also from his family. Finally he became stressed.

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Mr. Biswas’s suffering not only seen from his dependent on the way he was making to live, but also could be seen from the place he stayed. He was also depended to mostly the Tulsis for the place of living. Mr. Biswas was lived in some place to another and almost none of them could be called as his own. After his father’s death he must left the house that he had his right.

As a boy he had moved from one house of strangers to another; and since his marriage he felt he had lived nowhere but in the houses of the Tulsis, at Hanuman House in Arwacas, in the decaying wooden house at Shorthills, in the clumsy concrete house in Port of Spain (p.6).

He also ever lived in a place with worse condition. First one he lived at the shop as a shopkeeper in the Chase, and second at the barracks in the Green Vale.

Mr. Biswas’s shop was a short, narrow room with a rusty galvanized iron roof...the walls never fell down, never deteriorated beyond the limberness in which he had found them (p.135-136).

As soon as he saw the barracks Mr. Biswas decided that the time had come for him to build his own house, by whatever means….(p.197).

Other suffering came from his and his wife’s big family. As a boy he was always sent off to learn or to work for strangers. His protest to his mother means nothing.

‘Why do you keep on sending me to stay with other people?’ (p62)

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His relation with his wife’s family, the Tulsis, also was not good. It happened since his married his wife, Shama, until the end before he died. From the beginning, Mr. Biswas knew that his had not had a position into the Tulsis.

They had married Shama to him simply because he was the proper caste, just as they had married the daughter called C to an illiterate coconut-seller.

Mr. Biswas had no money or position. He was expected to become a Tulsi (p.93).

The Tulsi family organization was simple. Mrs. Tulsi as the head of family was helped by Seth, who controlled the husbands to work for the Tulsis. In return they were given food, shelter, and a little money. They all depended on the Tulsis, including Mr. Biswas. He had no power against the family, especially to Seth.

In Seth’s presence Mr. Biswas felt diminished. Everything about Seth was overpowering: his calm manner, his smooth grey hair, his ivory holder, his hard swollen forearms; after he spoke he stroked them, and looked at the hairs springing back into their original posture (p.103).

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Chase, and the other was held when Mr. Biswas started to build his first house at Green Vale. We could see Mr. Biswas argument from the dialogue below:

One evening Shama said, ‘We must have a house-blessing ceremony, and get Hari to bless the shop and house, and have Mai and Uncle and everybody else here.’

He was taken completely by surprise, and lost his temper. ‘What the hell you think I look like?’ he asked in English. ‘The Maharajah of Barrackpore? And what the hell for I should get Hari to come and bless this place? Thisplace? Look for yourself.’ He pointed to the kitchen and slapped the wall of the shop. ‘is bad enough as it is. To feed your family on top of all this is really going too damn far’ (p.141-142).

Another unfair treatment that Mr. Biswas suffered from the Tulsi family was related to his children. It is a right for parents to give name to newly born children. Mr. Biswas also had prepared a name for his first child who was born when Mr. Biswas worked at The Chase as a shopkeeper. But when Mr. Biswas went to see his newly born daughter at Hanuman House, he was disappointed to find that his daughter was already had a name given by Seth and Hari. This treatment was also happened for Mr. Biswas’s later childrens.

And the baby was a girl. But it was born at the correct time; it was born without difficulty; it was healthy; and Shama was absolutely well. He expected no less from her. He closed the shop and cycled to Hanuman House, and found that his daughter had already been named.

‘Look at Savi,’ Shama said. ‘Savi?’

They were in Mrs. Tulsi’s room, the Rose Room, where all the sisters spent their confinements.

‘It is a nice name,’ Shama said.

Nice name; when all the way from The Chase he had been working on names, and had decided on Sarojini Lakshmi Kamala Devi.

‘Seth and Hari chose it’ (p.155).

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certificate of his daughter Mr. Biswas was named a labor, although at that time he was a shopkeeper. Mr. Biswas’s disappointment showed from the expression in his dialogue with his wife, Shama.

Suddenly he jumped up. ‘What the hell is this?’ ‘Show me.’

He showed her the certificate. ‘Look. Occupation of father. Labourer. Labourer! Me! Where your family get all this bad blood, girl?’

‘I didn’t see that.’

‘Trust Seth. Look. Name of informant: R. N. Seth. Occupation: Estate Manager.’

‘I wonder why he do that’ (p.156).

Mr. Biswas sometimes also got a fake promise from Seth. When Mr. Biswas asked Seth for a house when he worked at the Tulsi’s sugar-estate at Green Vale as a driver or sub-overseer, Seth was promised to give it to him. But Seth never fulfilled his promised and because of that Mr. Biswas had to live in a barrack, inappropriate and unsafe place for living.

Mr. Biswas told Seth, ‘I got to stop living next door to these people.’ Seth said, ‘We are going to build a house for you.’

But Seth was only talking. He never mentioned the house again, and Mr. Biswas remained in the barracks (p.200).

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under the storm. This incident even made Mr. Biswas stressed. This situation was clearly explained from the dialogue between the Tulsi family members as below:

Sisters and husbands held a council.

‘I did always think he was mad,’ Chinta said.

Sushila, the childless widow, spoke with her sickroom authority. ‘It isn’t about Mohun I am worried, but the children.’

Padma, Seth’s wife, asked, ‘What do you think he is sick with?’ Sumati, the flogger said, ‘Message only said that he was very sick.’

‘And that his house had been practically blown away,’ Jai’s mother added (p.281).

His second that he built at the Shorthills was also destroyed by accident. His house accidentally burned down. The situation was slightly different with the first accident. Mr. Biswas could take it easily.

Morning revealed the house, still red and raw, in a charred and smoking desolation. Villagers came running to see, and were confirmed in their belief that their village had been taken over by vandals.

‘Charcoal, charcoal.’ Mr. Biswas called to them. ‘Anybody want charcoal?’

For days afterwards the valley darkened with ash whenever the wind blew. Ash dusted the plot Bipti had forked.

‘Best thing for the land,’ Mr. Biswas said. ‘Best sort of fertilizer’ (p.415). However the lost of houses was Mr. Biswas deepest lost since it was his dream. Also without the place for living made Mr. Biswas worried when he got a notice to quit from the place of where he lived with his family. He worried because he had no idea where to go, where he and his family should live. Even the government could not be the solution although he had worked as the employee of public service.

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He spoke lightly, expecting solicitude, but his lightness was met with lightness.

‘I expect I will be joining you in Marine Square,’ aGuardianreporter said. ‘Hell of a thing, though. Married with four children and nowhere to go. Know any places for rent?’

‘If I know one I would be there right now.’ ‘Ah, well. I suppose it will be the square.’ ‘It look so’ (p.535).

‘Is true? The man asked.

Mr. Biswas noted the man’s size, the concern in his voice and his young-old face. ‘Yes, man.’

‘You really got notice?’

Mr. Biswas responded to this sympathy by pursing his lips, looking down at his glass and nodding.

‘Hell of a thing. How long?’ ‘Notice. A month, I suppose.’

‘Hell of a thing. Married? Children?’ ‘Four.’

‘God! You try the government? You in the Service now, not so? And ain’t they have some sort of housing loans scheme?’

‘Only for established people’ (p.537).

Those two quotations of dialogues show that it was somehow difficult to find a place for living at that time in Trinidad. Mr. Biswas as the government employee, whose job was in community walfare, knows how difficult his situation at the moment.

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B. The Struggle to Survive as a Form of Resistance

After the writer examined the condition of the Mr. Biswas as a representation of Indian society in Trinidad under colonialism with bad treatments and oppression suffered by him, this part will more focus on the struggle to survive as a forms of resistance under the circumstances. As mention earlier, Mr. Biswas was the third generation of Indian society in Trinidad as seen in the novel. As the third generation, Mr. Biswas could also be a representation of the young and modern Indian generation in Trinidad.

The struggle to survive that Mr. Biswas had done can be seen as these actions; the struggle to earn money from various jobs, the struggle for gaining a better education, not only for himself but also for his children, the struggle to have a private house, and struggle to survive under pressure from the Tulsi family. The first thing that made Mr. Biswas had to struggle to earn money came just after his father’s death. Although he was sent to school by his aunt Tara, he was not feeling happy at home. He lived in a bad place that full of strangers. His relation with mother also had gone badly.

It would have pained Mr. Biswas if anyone from the school saw where he lived, in one room of a mud hut in the back trace. He was not happy there and even after five years considered it a temporary arrangement. Most of the people in the hut remained strangers, and his relations with Bipti were unsatisfaying because she was shy of showing him affection in a house of strangers (p.46-47).

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method. Someday Bhandat accused him for stealing and beat him. This incident made him thought of getting his own job and also his own house.

‘I am going to get a job on my own. And I am going to get my own house too. I am finished with this.’ He waved his aching arm about the mud walls and the low, sooty thatch (p.64).

Being a sign-writer was the first job that Mr. Biswas could managed by his own effort. This job also later on brought him to his wife and the future job as a reporter. With this job Mr. Biswas felt comfortable when doing it. With this job he learned a lot of books and magazines. First only to learn the shape of the letters for his reference for his job, but he often ended in reading them. The only problem of this job was it came irregularly. This situation oppressed him later after his marriage that he has to accept the offer from the Tulsi and became depended on them.

After he married one of the Tulsi daughters, Shama, Mr. Biswas know that without money or position, he was expected to become a Tulsi. From the very beginning he entered the Tulsis, Mr. Biswas had perform an act of rebel. At first he tried to run from the Tulsis as the thought that he would become free man again. But his thought was false. His family at Pagotes had already known about his marriage and made him came back to Hanuman House. Once he came back he realized his position in the Tulsi family.

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Another action that Mr. Biswas done to show the act of rebel against the Tulsi family was occurred when he started to gave a named for the Tulis family that shows who were the authorizes that controlled the family activities. The named that Mr. Biswas could be seen in the quotation below:

‘How the little gods getting on today, eh?’ he would ask. He meant her brothers. (p.99)

‘How the gods,eh?’ Shama wouldn’t reply.

‘And how the Big Boss getting on today?’ that was Seth. Shama wouldn’t reply

‘And how the old queen?’ that was Mrs. Tulsi. ‘The old hen? The old cow?’ (p.99)

Mr. Biswas acted rebel to be an opposition in the Tulsi family because he was treated unfair from the Tulsi family. One example when he came to Hanuman House to visit his newly born daughter, he found out that his daughter had been named by Seth and Hari. Not only given name without permission, he was mentioned as a labor as his occupation in his daughter’s birth certificate. Meanwhile at that time Mr. Biswas was run a food-shop, as a shopkeeper. For this treatment Mr. Biswas spontaneously gave additional information on the certificate by himself.

He was scribbling hard on the birth certificate.

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action could show Mr. Biswas that he did not want always to be under the control of the Tulsi family.

‘They looking for good drivers on the estate,’ Govind said

‘Give up sign-painting? And my independence? No, boy. My motto is: paddle your own canoe.’ Mr. Biswas began to quote from the poem in

Bell’s Standard Elocutionist(p.101).

Mr. Biswas also chose English as his communication language when he was at Hanuman House, although the other family members who lived at that house spoke Hindi. This quotation below shows one Mr. Biswas’s attitude toward the Tulsi Family:

About a week later Seth met Mr. Biswas in the hall and said, laughing. ‘How is yourdearfriend Pankaj Rai?’

‘What you asking me for?’ Mr. Biswas nearly always spoke English at Hanuman House, even when the other person spoke Hindi; it had become one of his principles (p.113).

Just exactly because of an incident between him and the family, Mr. Biswas got a chance to leave the Hanuman House. He was placed to The Chase to run a small-food shop that the Tulsi family owned there. However, The Chase was a small place to hope for gaining great profit. The quotation below would portray the condition of the village.

To such towns the villagers made arduous and infrequent excursions to obtain dry goods, to make complaints to the police, to appear in court; for The Chase could support neither a dry goods store nor a police station nor even a school. Its two most important public buildings were the two rumshops. And it abounded in small food-shops, one of which was Mr. Biswas’s (p.135).

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to get some profit already. Because of he believed that his career as the shopkeeper just for temporary, Mr. Biswas tried to make it simple. His attitude toward his profession as a shopkeeper could be seen in the quotation below:

And that was what Mr. Biswas continued to feel about their venture: that it was temporary and not quite real, and it didn’t matter how it was arranged. He had felt that on the first afternoon; and the feeling lasted until he left The Chase. Real life was to begin for them soon, and elsewhere. The Chase was a pause, a preparation (p.140).

And the thought of Mr. Biswas about selling was appeared in the quotation: In the meantime he became a shopkeeper. Selling had seemed to him such an easy way of making a living he had often wondered why people bothered to do anything else…But when he had stocked the shop, using the rest of his savings, and opened his doors, he found that people did come to him and buy and hand over real money. After sale in those early days he felt he had pulled off a deep confidence tricks, and had difficulty in hiding his exultation (p.140-141).

Mr. Biswas always tried to give the best from him for the any job that he did, especially the jobs that he managed to get from his own effort. As the sign-writer for example, Mr. Biswas tried to extend his knowledge about the forms of letters. His struggle to giving the best also shows when he became a reporter. Although he was lacks experience in writing, he was no doubt when he came to the Sentinel office to get a job as reporter. And Mr. Biswas had done something to catch up with the standard of the reporter in his newspaper.

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Stories: How to Write Them by Cecil Hunt andHow to Write a Book, by the same author (p.327-328).

Mr. Biswas also provided himself a tool to write, a portable typewriter. He planned to earn some money using his typewriter by writing for the English and American newspapers periodically. When he found difficulties in writing a story, he delivered an article to the Ideal School of Journalism in London. When there were changed in the Sentinel’s policy about the newspaper should be, Mr. Biswas could managed it. Mr. Biswas was responsible to write the news from court short, funerals, and cricket matches before he was put to do a weekly feature.

When the Sentinel decided to raise their circulation by making a new division, Mr. Biswas was appointed to do the job. This division called the Deserving Destitutes Fund and Mr. Biswas was the investigator.

Mr. Biswas was appointed investigator. It was his duty to read applications from destitutes, reject the undeserving, visit the others to see how deserving or desperate they were, and then, if the circumstances warranted it, to write harrowing accounts of their plight, harrowing enough to encourage contributions for the fund. He had to find one deserving destitute a day (p.423).

Mr. Biswas did his job as the investigator well. The Sentineleven did not bother him with any interference. For the first time of his life, Mr. Biswas had such an authority.

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Although he has such power and authority, Mr. Biswas did not use his position to gain a personal profit. Because his position could change people’s life, Mr. Biswas was often offer bribes. But he never accepted them.

…And the first time in his life Mr. Biswas was offered bribes. It was a mark of status. But, largely through a distrust of the Deserving Destees, he accepted nothing, though he did allow a crippled Negro joiner to make him a diningtable at a low price (p.426).

There was another action that showed Mr. Biswas had a good manner for his job. He was not using his position for personal or family profit. He even rejected his own relatives to get the fund from Deserving Destitutes. This action can be seen at the quotation below:

Sushila, the senior widow, came to the foot of the bed and spoke. Could they be considered Deserving Destitutes?

She spoke in a steady, considered way. Mr. Biswas was too embarrassed to reply.

Of course, Sushila said, they couldn’t all be Deserving Destitues. But couldn’t one?

It was impossible. However destitute they might be, they were relations (p.428).

There was another reason to refuse his sister-in-law. Mr. Biswas knew that he could lose his job accepted his own relatives to be considered Deserving Destitutes. But even their not his relatives, Mr. Biswas also knew their case was unconvincing.

‘I am sorry,’ Mr. Biswas said, to the back of the last widow. ‘But I would lose my job. Sorry.’

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stylish advertisements (‘Tulsi Theatres Trinidad proudly present…’)? (p.429)

Mr. Biswas was a person who had good concern toward education. He had a good effort to get better education for him and also his children. This manner was developed well because Mr. Biswas was like to read since a boy. When he had the routines read for Ajodha all That Body of Yourscolumns, Mr. Biswas got a chance to explore theBook of Comprehensive Knowledge. When he worked as a sign-writer, Mr. Biswas read a lot of magazines and books to extend his variety type of fonts. Even when he worked as a reporter, Mr. Biswas was lack in experience of writing and journalism. Therefore he tried to get knowledge by autodidact study.

Mr. Biswas concerned about the education of his children greater than to himself. Even he provided an extra better meal like fresh milk from the diaries for his children, especially to Anand, since he was in the star section. Anand was also provided extra lesson beside the regular one, preparing his exhibition.

With the exhibition examination less than two months away, Anand lived a life of pure work. Private lessons were given in the morning for an hour before school; private lessons were given in the afternoon for an hour after school; private lessons were given for the whole Saturday morning (p.444-445).

Mr. Biswas also had already thought that his son had to go to collage. His thought was the proved that Mr. Biswas really concern on education.

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Mr. Biswas not only provided better meals for Anand only. When Myna been chosen for the exhibition, she also got her extra meals, milk and prunes. So Mr. Biswas never chosen among his children who were more appropriate to get a better education. Mr. Biswas would give everything when the children showed their work and seriousness.

For Mr. Biswas, his biggest dream ever was to own a house. This was his dream since he was young. And because of his willing to have his own house is so strong, he even ever built two houses during his life. On every time he came to some place because of his job or else, Mr. Biswas always think about built a house. When he lived with his mother at the back trace which was full of strangers in Pagotes, he already thought about owning a house of himself. When had to live at barracks in Green Vale with rude estates-labors, Mr. Biswas knew he had to build a house a soon as possible. The chance came when he received his payment for his burning goods at The Chase. He already knew what kind of house he wanted.

He had thought deeply about this house, and knew exactly what he wanted. He wanted, in the first place, a real house, made with real materials. He didn’t want mud for walls, earth for floor, tree branches for rafters and grass for roof…The roof would be red, the outside walls ochre with chocolate facings, and the windows white (p.201-202).

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‘You decide how much you want to start off with?’

‘A hundred,’ Mr. Biswas said. ‘More at the end of the month. No concrete pillars’ (p.242).

Mr. Biswas also tried to get a loan from his mother’s family and friend. But when he could not managed enough money to buy new materials for his house, Mr. Biswas found another way to finished his house by using used materials, for example some galvanize for the roof.

‘I was going to come to see you the other day,’ Mr. Biswa said. ‘But you know how it is. I got about eighteen dollars. No, fifteen. I just went to Arwacas to buy some galvanize for the roof.’

‘Just in time too, boss. Otherwise all the money you did spend woulda waste.’

‘Not new galvanize, you know. I mean, not brand-brand new’ (p.248).

Finally, the house was become to half-built house, with materials that not Mr. Biswas first choice. If the house Mr. Biswas had built was more suited called as a hut than a house, than the second house which built at the Shorthills was a wooden house.

…The house was begun and, unblessed, completed in less than a month. Its pattern was precisely that of the house he had attempted in Green Vale, precisely that of thousands of houses in rural Trinidad. It had a verandah, two bedrooms and a drawingroom, and stood on tall pillars. Estate trees provided the timber; he had to pay only for the sawing. He bought corrugated iron for the roof, plain glass and frosted glass for the windows, coloured glass for the drawingroom door, and cement for the pillars (p.407).

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A STUDY OF EAST INDIAN SOCIETY’S STRUGGLE TO SURVIVE IN TRINIDAD AS DEPICTED IN NAIPUL’S A

A STUDY OF EAST INDIAN SOCIETY’S STRUGGLE TO

SURVIVE IN TRINIDAD AS DEPICTED IN NAIPUL’S

A

HOUSE FOR MR. BISWAS

A STUDY OF EAST INDIAN SOCIETY’S STRUGGLE TO

SURVIVE IN TRINIDAD AS DEPICTED IN NAIPUL’S

A

HOUSE FOR MR. BISWAS

I want to live a long life,

Not just a simple life

But to make my life alive!

Life is not the amount breath you take,

But the moment that takes your breath away

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